GOP gubernatorial hopeful Kim Guadagno‘s campaign was hit with a bucket of cold water by a new poll Monday, less than a week after a separate survey suggested her rival’s lead over her to succeed Gov. Chris Christie wasn’t that wide.

A new survey on the race shows Democratic hopeful Phil Murphy with a nearly 20 percent point lead — 44 percent to 25 percent — over Guadagno, Christie’s second in command, according to the Suffolk University/USA TODAY Network Poll. Among “very likely voters,” Murphy’s lead drops a percentage point: 45 percent to Guadagno’s 27 percent.

Late last week, a Fox News poll showed Murphy’s lead at only 13 percentage point — representing the smallest gap between the two.

But that was short lived.

Making matters worse, Christie could be one of the largest factors hurting Guadagno’s chances.

A new poll from Fox News also shows 62 percent of voters are not happy with how things are going in New Jersey.

After “don’t know,” “Chris Christie” was the first word or phrase that came to mind when people heard Guadagno’s name, according to the poll. Fifteen percent thought of Christie, followed by 7 percent “Republican” and 6 percent “lieutenant governor.”….

The one thing that Donald Trump HAS been able get done is to cut down on the flow of people from outside to this country….

That goes for illegal immigrants, refugees and tourists…..

Trump has ICE cops out searching for undocumented kids, parents and relatives….He has pushed the people who decide who stays to spare no effort to rid the country of these people….

Several Federal judges and Appeal courts have tried to slow the efforts down, but with Neil Gorsuch on the bench with the Supreme’s?….Trump is on a roll….

Against all of this a new ABC poll shows that while Trump is making HIS supporters happy?

Americans’s on the whole are NOT behind his efforts….

A vast 86 percent of Americans support a right to residency for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children, with support crossing the political spectrum. Two-thirds back a deal to enact such legislation in tandem with higher funding for border control.

Possibly in light of President Donald Trump’s decision to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, disapproval of his handling of immigration overall reaches 62 percent in this ABC News/Washington Post poll. Just 35 percent approve.

Additional hurdles for Trump are his demand for a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico — again 62 percent oppose it — and substantial concerns about his immigration enforcement policies.

Americans were asked whether they support “a program that allows undocumented immigrants to stay in the United States if they arrived here as a child, completed high school or military service and have not been convicted of a serious crime,” all elements of DACA, established by Barack Obama by executive order in 2012. Support spans demographic groups, including three-quarters of Republicans and conservatives, 86 and 87 percent of independents and moderates, and 97 and 96 percent of Democrats and liberals.

Support reaches 94 percent among Hispanics, 93 percent among blacks and 84 percent among whites. Strong support, 87 percent among Hispanics and 85 percent among blacks, declines among whites to 61 percent.

Trump early this month said he would rescind DACA, giving Congress a six-month window to act before nearly 800,000 undocumented immigrants lose protection from deportation. He later reached a tentative agreement with top congressional Democrats for DACA legislation accompanied by upgraded border security.

As noted, 65 percent support that potential compromise — a bipartisan result, with 76 percent support among Republicans, 66 percent among independents and 59 percent among Democrats. Similarly, 71 percent of moderates, 66 percent of conservatives and 56 percent of liberals back the deal. Just 27 percent of Americans in this poll, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, are opposed…..

Republican Senator’s Paul, Collins and now McCain will vote AGAINST the Graham/Cassidy Healthcare Repeal Bill….

…

As we wait for the US Senate to possibly vote AGAIN on trying to back up their pledge to get rid of a Obama healthcare program that they themselves have made more popular….

We see a crescendo of reasons why the Graham/Cassidy Bill is witout any merit EXCEPT to do something that the Grand Ole Party is choking on that needs fixing NOT a misguided hard sell campaign push that could send tens of millions of Americans out of their healthcare insurance….

Some Republicans appear to deaf, dumb and blind on this….

A new poll finds that just 24 percent of voters support the Graham-Cassidy ObamaCare repeal bill.

The poll from the left-leaning Public Policy Polling finds that 24 percent approve of the new ObamaCare repeal and replacement bill, while 50 percent disapprove.

The low approval number comes as the Senate is heading towards a possible vote on the legislation next week, and as backers are still trying to rally support.

The poll was highlighted by several Democratic groups seeking to defend the Affordable Care Act.

In addition, 46 percent of voters said they would be less likely to vote for a member of Congress if he or she voted for Graham-Cassidy, while 23 percent would be more likely.

Seventy-seven percent said they agreed with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel that no one should be denied coverage because they cannot afford it…..

…’One official said the concerns from governors have alarmed some in the White House — and that “we really aren’t sure what the impact will be” of passing the bill. They also fear that the bill could bring political blowback from the left and right.

Trump has publicly expressed enthusiasm about the bill, tweeting about it repeatedly. But in conversations with aides, he has turned back to one topic: What can the White House do that is seen as “repeal and replace?” a phrase he likes to repeat’…

Those who actually finish their undergraduate study feel it was worth it by 63%….

People with six figure student loans proably ain’t too happy with THAT part either….

Americans are losing faith in the value of a college degree, with majorities of young adults, men and rural residents saying college isn’t worth the cost, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey shows.

The findings reflect an increase in public skepticism of higher education from just four years ago and highlight a growing divide in opinion falling along gender, educational, regional and partisan lines. They also carry political implications for universities, already under public pressure to rein in their costs and adjust curricula after decades of sharp tuition increases.

Overall, a slim plurality of Americans, 49%, believes earning a four-year degree will lead to a good job and higher lifetime earnings, compared with 47% who don’t, according to the poll of 1,200 people taken Aug. 5-9. That two-point margin narrowed from 13 points when the same question was asked four years earlier.

The shift was almost entirely due to growing skepticism among Americans without four-year degrees—those who never enrolled in college, who took only some classes or who earned a two-year degree. Four years ago, that group used to split almost evenly on the question of whether college was worth the cost. Now, skeptics outnumber believers by a double-digit margin.

Conversely, opinion among college graduates is almost identical to that of four years ago, with 63% saying college is worth the cost versus 31% who say it isn’t….

Donald Trumpis losing support from voters who crossed over to back him in last year’s election, according to a new study released Wednesday.

A new survey from the bipartisan Democracy Fund Voter Study Group, which has been interviewing the same voters repeatedly for the past six years, identifies which voters have drifted away from Trump over the first six months of his presidency — and points to the danger for Republicans if the party can’t bring them back into the fold in the upcoming off-year and midterm elections.

Among all Trump voters, the president’s approval rating remains high: The vast majority, 88 percent, approved of the job he is doing as president. But there is erosion among voters who backed Barack Obama in 2012 but switched to Trump in 2016. Only 70 percent of those Obama-Trump voters approved of the job the president is doing. And 22 percent disapproved — a rate more than twice the 9 percent of all Trump voters who disapproved.

Sixteen percent of these Obama-Trump voters said they regretted their choice in last year’s election — a small but significant number that again outpaces the 6 percent of all Trump voters who regret voting for him…..

In a memo Thursday night, the Department of Homeland Security announced that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as DACA, would remain in effect, although a White House official told Reuters Friday that “no final determination has been made.” Trump had previously signaled there would be little change to U.S. policy on the program, pledging in December to “work something out.”

In a Morning Consult survey from late April, almost 4 in 5 (78 percent) registered voters said the Dreamers should be allowed to stay in the country, with more than half (56 percent) expressing support for eventual citizenship.

Just 14 percent of respondents said those undocumented immigrants should be deported, a pledge made by President Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign.

There was also broad support in favor of the Dreamers among the voters who helped elect Trump in November: 73 percent of those voters said the Dreamers should be allowed to stay in the country, with almost half (48 percent) of those voters also saying they should have a path to becoming U.S. citizens….

Tuesday night at a focus group in Pittsburgh, a group of reporters heard from a different slice of Trump voters — ones he’s lost for now.

“Outrageous,” “disappointed,” “not ready” were among the adjectives that focus group members tossed out when asked for a single word to describe the president — and those were from the participants who had voted for him.

“He has got to be his own worst enemy,” said Tony Sciullo, a lifelong Pittsburgh resident and a registered independent who works for an insurance agency and described Trump as an “abject disappointment.”

“He’s such an incredibly flawed individual who has articulated so many of the values that I hold dear,” Sciullo said, adding that he almost wished Trump were on the other side of the political divide because of the damage he sees him doing to conservative causes.

Brian Rush, a registered Republican who works as a sales representative, voiced a slightly more supportive view.

“I’m still going to hold off judgment,” he said. “I’m hoping things can turn around.”

Trump “does want this country to be great,” Rush said. He likened the administration to a once-new car that now has several dents and is “not running the way it should” while the mechanics “don’t know exactly why.”….

His first job is a memeber of thge House of Representive in the US Congress…

His second job is leading that legislative body….

With low polling numbers?

And the political sniping between him a Trump?

Could the guy be in trouble?

“Do you plan to vote against Paul D. Ryan continuing his speakership?”

It was an easy-sounding question, asked at the end of a friendly Republican candidate forum at Minnesota’s state fair. To the pleasant surprise of Democrats, four of five Republicans seeking to flip House seats next year declined to support the speaker of the House, offering instead criticisms of Paul D. Ryan’s leadership.

“I think he’s going in the wrong direction,” said state Rep. Tim Miller.

“I would prefer someone else,” said commercial pilot Dave Hughes.

“We’ll see who runs for speaker,” said businessman Jim Hagedorn.

“He might not even run for speaker,” said St. Louis County Commissioner Pete Stauber….

…

“Speaker Ryan has been instrumental in the passage of key House legislative items and the successful election of four new Republican members in 2017. We’re thankful for his leadership.”

Public polling, however, has seen Ryan’s favorable rating and approval rating tumble since the start of the Trump presidency. According to HuffPost’s poll tracker, Ryan’s approval rating was barely underwater, 35/41, the week of Trump’s inauguration. Today, it’s underwater by close to 20 points, 30/49; Pelosi’s rating is 29/49. A Bloomberg poll, conducted shortly before the effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act failed in the Senate, found 61 percent of Republican voters approving of Ryan, with every other voting bloc viewing him negatively.

“His numbers are no better than mine,” Pelosi said after Democrats lost a special election in Georgia’s 6th District. “The difference is we don’t engage in the politics of personal destruction.”…

Harry Entenover at Five Thirty Eight does long piece on some suspicious doings in the polling business….

He tracks down the poll that had Kid Rock leading in a possible Michigan US Senate Race….

Enten got worried when things started to point to the poll involved was NEVER actually done?….(My comment here when the poll came out was it could be a marketing gimmick)

Could some people do things like this to produce false positives for whoever, which the media would pick up and carry as a real post that could affecting voting? …..

Is Kid Rock leading the U.S. Senate race in Michigan? A story like that is essentially designed to go viral, and that’s exactly what happened when Delphi Analytica released a poll fielded from July 14 to July 18. Republican Kid Rock earned 30 percent to Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s 26 percent. A sitting U.S. senator was losing to a man who sang the lyric, “If I was president of the good ol’ USA, you know I’d turn our churches into strip clubs and watch the whole world pray.”

There was just one problem: Nobody knew if the poll was real. Delphi Analytica’s website came online July 6, mere weeks before the Kid Rock poll was supposedly conducted. The pollster had basically no fingerprint on the web.

Indeed, Delphi Analytica isn’t a polling firm in any traditional sense, and it’s not entirely clear they even conducted the poll as advertised.

The story of Delphi Analytica, its mysterious origins and its Kid Rock poll show that the line between legitimate and illegitimate pollsters is blurring. Much of the polling industry is moving online, where conducting a survey is far less expensive than making thousands of phone calls. But that lower price has also opened up polling to all sorts of new people: Some are seasoned professionals trying an old craft with a new tool or well-informed, well-meaning amateurs trying to break into the industry, but other characters have less noble goals — they’re pranksters seeking attention and scam artists trying to make a quick buck.

If you’re a political observer interested in polls or a journalist who writes about them, you need to be more careful than ever…..

Delphi Analytica, the mysterious publisher of the poll, had had its site taken down and had deleted its Twitter account. (One person who contacted Enten said that the purpose of the poll was to move political betting markets, a charge the pollster denied.)

But real or fake, the news story enhanced Kid Rock’s potential political career, and may be more likely to run as a result. Already, former New York Governor George Pataki has endorsed him….

The primary for the Democratic to run for Nassau County Executive is heating up….

George Marargos, who is the country Controller, has switched from the Republicans to the Democrat’s and most thought would get the party support in his run County Executive…But THAT did NOT happen…

Democrats the party have chosen county Legislator Laura Curran instead…

They’ll be running against former state senator Jack Martins, who lost his bid for Congress to former country executive Thomas Suozzi….

Democrats have been on a roll in recent elections winning two US House seats and the County DA’s office from the Nassau County GOP machine which has several members in trouble with the law….

George Maragos will air his first TV ad Friday in his Democratic primary campaign for Nassau County executive.

The commercial will both attack county Legislator Laura Curran, his primary opponent, and tout his own candidacy, the county comptroller said in an interview. He plans to unveil the spot on Friday and publish it to social media.

Maragos, who is funding his own campaign, would not say how much he is spending on the ads, but called it a “significant buy” on cable stations.

The ad will be the first that any Democratic candidate for county executive has run. It will start airing fewer than three weeks before primary voters go to the polls Sept. 12….

But 7 months after he managed to do something we ALL thought he couldn’t?

Trump has lost the faith of those who enabled him to beat the odds and pundits….(He STILL HAS strong Republican support in those states though, not OVERALL )

In the 2016 presidential election, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin accounted for a combined 46 electoral votes which helped propel Donald Trump into the White House. But, how do residents of these Rust Belt states think President Trump is doing now?

In each of these states, majorities disapprove of the president’s job performance. His approval rating hovers in only the mid-thirties. In Michigan, 36% of residents statewide approve of his job performance, and 55% disapprove. In Pennsylvania, 33% approve of how President Trump is doing in his post, and 52% disapprove. Among Wisconsin residents, the president’s score is similarly upside down, 33% to 56%.

“For residents of these three critical electoral states, the reaction to the first round of the Trump presidency is decidedly negative,” says Dr. Lee M. Miringoff, Director of The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. “Residents are clearly dissatisfied in how candidate Trump transitioned into President Trump.”

Many Republicans and Tea Party supporters are in the president’s camp. Still, notable proportions of Tea Party supporters in Michigan, 24%, and Pennsylvania, 24%, have doubts about how the president is executing his job.

Trump still has the support of most of those who backed him in the 2016 election. Most Trump supporters in Michigan, 84%, Pennsylvania, 81%, and Wisconsin, 77%, approve of the president’s job performance.

Among white residents without a college education, President Trump outperforms his overall job performance rating in each of these states. However, he fails to achieve 50% among this group, many of whom were his most ardent supporters in the 2016 election. In fact, in Michigan and Wisconsin, the plurality of these residents now disapprove of how the president is doing his job.

By at least two to one, more residents in Michigan, 38%, Pennsylvania, 39%, and Wisconsin, 42%, strongly disapprove than strongly approve of how the president is doing his job…..

Though sharply split across partisan lines, 55 percent of Americans disapprove of President Donald Trump’s response to a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. that turned deadly last weekend, a new CBS News poll finds.

Just over two-thirds of Republicans said they approve of Trump’s response to the attack, where a car rammed into a crowd of counter protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.

The poll, conducted through and after Trump defended Tuesday his initial failure to specifically denounce neo-Nazi groups for their role in the attack, found rising disapproval of the president’s response.

Fifty-three percent of independents disapprove of the president’s response, while 32 percent approve. Among Democrats, 82 percent disapprove of the response.

Views on the president’s handling of the situation are closely linked to his description of the events. A majority of Republicans — 68 percent — say Trump’s description of the events was accurate, while a majority of Democrats and independents say it was not accurate….

The Marist Organization joins other polling outfits in revealing a steady drop in approval Donald Trump moving into 8th month of being President…

65% of American do NOT like his being in office….

Trump’s supporters like to point to his approval among Republicans as being double that of the general public….

But the Maris poll has the Republican approval dropping almost 20% points in the 8 months since Trump got sworn in…

President Donald Trump’s job approval rating is at its lowest point since taking office with only 35% of Americans giving him a positive score. 55% disapprove of the job he is doing which is his highest negative rating as president. Although still popular among his key constituency, notably, his job performance rating has dropped among strong Republicans from 91% in June to 79% now. In addition, by more than two to one, Americans who strongly disapprove of his job performance, 42%, outnumber those who strongly approve, 20%. In June, his overall approval rating stood at 37%, and 51% disapproved. At a similar time in President Obama’s tenure, 55% of registered voters approved of the job he was doing, and 35% disapproved.

“While Republicans are still largely in Trump’s corner, the cautionary tale for the president lies in the softening of support at his base,” says Dr. Lee M. Miringoff, Director of The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. “Since his numbers among Democrats and independents are weak, a crack among his most ardent supporters is something Trump can ill afford.”

More Americans also have a negative impression of the president. 60% of residents, including one in five Republicans, view Trump unfavorably, representing his most unpopular standing since assuming office. Only 34% have a favorable view of him. When this question was last reported in June, Trump’s negative score was 56%, and his positive rating was 37%. There has been a drop in the proportion of strong Republicans who have a positive view of the president from 94% in June to 80% this time…..

Slightly more than half of Republicans say they would support postponing the 2020 presidential election if President Trump proposed it to make sure only eligible American citizens can vote, according to a new survey.

According to a poll conducted by two academic authors and published byThe Washington Post, 52 percent of Republicans said they would back a postponement of the next election if Trump called for it.

If Trump and congressional Republicans proposed postponing the election to ensure only eligible citizens could vote, support from Republicans rises to 56 percent.

Pollsters found 47 percent of Republicans think Trump won the popular vote.

A majority of Republicans, 68 percent, also thinks millions of illegal immigrants voted in the presidential election and 73 percent think voter fraud happens somewhat or very often….

A poll from Quinnipiac University found that only a third of American voters, 33 percent, approve of his performance in office, while 61 percent disapprove of it. This marks his lowest approval and highest disapproval number since he was inaugurated, Quinnipiac said.

His latest approval rating is down 7 percentage points from the 40 percent approval rating Mr. Trump received in a similar survey in late June….

Trump wants his adopted party to keep at a Repeal effort of the Affordable Healthcare law….

They need to ignore him….

A majority of Americans are ready to move on from healthcare reform at this point after the U.S. Senate’s effort to dismantle Obamacare failed on Friday, according to an exclusive Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Saturday.

Nearly two-thirds of the country wants to either keep or modify the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, and a majority of Americans want Congress to turn its attention to other priorities, the survey found.

Republicans have vowed to dismantle the Affordable Care Act since Democratic President Barack Obama signed it into law in 2010, and it appeared they finally had their chance when Republican President Donald Trump took office in January. But the law, which helped 20 million people obtain health insurance, has steadily grown more popular.

The July 28-29 poll of more than 1,130 Americans, conducted after the Republican-led effort collapsed in the Senate, found that 64 percent said they wanted to keep Obamacare, either “entirely as is” or after fixing “problem areas.” That is up from 54 percent in January.

The survey found that support for the law still runs along party lines, with nine out of 10 Democrats and just three out of 10 Republicans saying they wanted to keep or modify Obamacare.

Among Republicans, three-fourths said they would like their party’s leaders to try to repeal and replace Obamacare at some point, though most listed other issues that they would give a higher priority right now…..